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Photo Origin: Mortal Kombat Wiki

Edward Boon: Co-Creator of Mortal Kombat Leaves Lasting Legacy in the Gaming World
By: David Weil, B.S. in Advertising, College of Media, Class of 2011

At the age of sixteen, Edward Boon began writing his own video games in BASIC (Beginner's All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code) on an Atari home computer. After graduating from Illinois in 1986 with a Bachelor of Science degree in Mathematics and Computer Science, Boon began working for a video game company, Williams Electronics. In 1991 Boon teamed up with lead designer Jeff Tobias to create Mortal Kombat, one of the first fighting arcade games, which reached cult status almost immediately. Boon worked for Midway Games, a subsidiary of Williams Electronics, for 15 years and was responsible for 15 different iterations of the game for various video game consoles and systems. When Midway Games sold the Mortal Kombat series to Warner Brothers Entertainment in July 2009, Boon stayed on as lead programmer. His most recent game, Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe, is the most pre-ordered MK game of all time. Mortal Kombat 9 will be released in 2010.